


Seringapatam

by ella_minnow



Series: King's Own [1]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ella_minnow/pseuds/ella_minnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wall was a shambling, looming hell, draped over with the bodies of England's dead and dying sons; the remains of the Forlorn Hope, those poor bastards who'd volunteered to make the first, suicidal rush against Seringapatam's fortifications.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seringapatam

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [ lmno @ livejournal](http://ella-minnow.livejournal.com/1434.html#cutid1) on 07/03/2003. This takes place at the end of the eighteenth century, when the British Empire was militarily exerting its presence in India. Inspired and frequently informed by the _Sharpe_ series of books by Bernard Cornwell. The first of a series that is _eating my brain_. Beta'd with love by mcee.

_Seringapatam  
India, 1799_

The wall was a shambling, looming hell, draped over with the bodies of England's dead and dying sons; the remains of the Forlorn Hope, those poor bastards who'd volunteered to make the first, suicidal rush against Seringapatam's fortifications.

Billy sucked a breath in through his teeth, the thick air coating the inside of his mouth with the taste of sulfur and gun smoke. He shifted his grip on his musket, his sweating hands making its barrel slip against his fingers. The bullet was spent, had been spent too early in the advance, and there had been neither time nor safety enough to stand and reload. But as a club and, with the bayonet firmly fixed, a sticker, it worked fine.

"Sergeant!"

The whisper was high, tight. Staying low, ducked behind a convenient bit of rubble knocked loose by cannon fire earlier in the day, Billy turned his head to track the speaker. The drifting gun smoke made it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction and the flickering light of the fires blazing around shot cannon balls gave everything a kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory edge.

"Who's there?" Billy hissed the question, shifting his grip on his musket again to be sure he had enough leverage to thrust it forward should the voice belong to an enemy.

A shape suddenly coalesced out of the smoke, a slight frame clad in the bright red jacket and white trousers of the King's own army. The man crawled along the ground towards Billy. "Wood, Sergeant. It's Ensign Wood."

The young ensign's face was black with gunpowder, his hair wild and long come loose from its usual, proper club at the base of his neck. Somewhere along the line, he'd lost not only his peaked officer's hat, but also his sword, a slender, elegant sabre that had looked rich riding against his slender hip as he'd paced around camp but that Billy was sure would have shattered into useless pieces at the first blow of a Mysorean blade. He still clutched his mounted British flag, which had been handed to him as the leader of the Forlorn Hope to plant at the top of the wall when it was breached.

"Mister Wood," Billy acknowledged with a brisk nod of his head. Wood squirmed around until he sat as Billy did, back pressed hard into the rough stone, knees and arms tucked in, head low. His eyes were wild, unearthly blue against his blackened face.

"What-" He choked, coughed, started again. "What do we do, Boyd?"

The bewildered, lost tone of voice surprised Billy almost as much as the question did.

"Sir?"

"What do we do, Sergeant? I don't know what to do." Wood paused, then added in an even smaller voice. "I've lost my sword."

"We... we go over the wall, Mister Wood. We're the Forlorn Hope."

Wood shook his head. "No, no. Everyone's dead."

"We're not, sir. So we keep going up."

The sound of a cannon firing split the air and the ball landed too close to the two soldiers' hiding place for comfort. The ground shook with the impact of the heavy, burning projectile and a spray of stone and bloody turf was sent raining down on Billy's head. With a curse, he was up and running, not bothering to check if Wood was following. Musket clutched in one hand, teeth bared, steady stream of invective and prayer spilling from his lips, Billy scrambled over rubble and corpses, ever up, ever onwards. He ignored the hot feel of musket balls splitting the air too close to his head, his body; he ignored the sight of familiar faces passing by and sometimes beneath his feet. He dodged the heavy, falling bodies of fellow British soldiers that came tumbling down from above. He ignored everything, everything, except the breach in the wall and the ground between him and it. He ran.

Out of the corner of his eye, he made out Ensign Wood scrambling along at his side, still trailing the flag from one hand, the other grappling at uneven stone, grasping and pulling himself along. He was white beneath the dirt on his face, but the lost look had been replaced with one of blind determination. Billy ran and so he ran, too, until a bullet caught him in the throat, sending him spinning, falling, collapsing forward under the weight of his own momentum upwards.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

Without thought, Billy pulled the flag free from the lifeless curl of Wood's fingers, pausing for no more than a second before he was up again and running again.

And then there was nowhere left to run to. Billy stood at the top of the wall, poised at the meeting point of the Mysore and British armies. His breath came in great, harsh gasps, the hot, Indian air burning at his lungs. Around him, the entire battle seemed to pause, an unnatural lull stretching, blurring reality into a smear of adrenaline and fire and heat.

He'd forgotten about the flag clutched in his left hand until a stray draft sent its edge brushing against the bare stretch of skin beneath the hem of his kilt, reminding Billy of its existence. He hefted its weight once, twice, then lifted it above his head and slammed the point of its shaft into the crumbling masonry beneath his feet.

Seringapatam was breached. It was only a matter of time and British lives until it fell.

The strange calm was suddenly shattered by the sound of gunfire, of yells, of thundering footsteps as Indian soldiers and British soldiers surged into the breach, surged against each other like waves against stone cliffs. Billy stood at the centre of the chaos, clutching the flag that had not taken and started to tip when Billy let it go.

Leaning his weight against the shaft, he took a breath.

And another.

And then one of the Mysorean defenders rushed at him, wickedly curved sword raised high, and there was no more time to breathe or think.

*

As afternoon turned into evening, Seringapatam, in smoke and blood and savagery and fire, fell.

As evening turned into night, Seringapatam was sacked. The British troops that had survived the wall, had survived the Mysorean army, poured into the streets of the city and laid waste in an orgy of adrenaline-fuled violence. Before the sun came up again, Seringapatam was broken.

Billy stood in the breach, leaning against the low, ragged edge of the shattered fortifications, staring down at the stretch of rubble and ground that had seemed so impassible the day before. In daylight, without drifting smoke and hails of bullets and cannon balls, it didn't look much like hell.

Or maybe, he decided, his gaze ghosting across the splayed corpses that had yet to be collected and buried, maybe it did.

"Sergeant Boyd."

Billy turned at the sound of his name. At the sight of the officer standing behind him, he snapped to attention. The officer, the insignia on the uniform of which told Billy he was standing before one of the two Major-Generals of the campaign, had come up the stairs built into the inside of the fortifying wall without Billy hearing him. He now stood, arms behind his back and feet braced, at the edge of the wall. He wasn't looking at Billy, but instead faced out, his eyes scanning the thin line of the horizon.

"At ease," the officer tossed off as Billy was about to salute. Billy paused, then relaxed a little, easing back against the wall. He was sore, his muscles screaming protest at him when he moved, and standing at attention only made it worse.

"You were first over the wall yesterday."

It was a statement, but Billy answered anyway. "Yes, sir."

"I saw you plant the flag. I led the charge up after you."

At a loss, Billy said again, "Yes, sir."

"Why did you volunteer, Sergeant? For the Forlorn Hope, I mean. The Forlorn is for insane young ensigns who want promoting and think they're invincible. It's for those crazy, roguish bastards who are addicted to danger like it's opium. You, I don't think, belong with either of those groups."

"I..." Billy wondered how blunt he should be to a commanding officer, even one as unconcerned with the formalities of saluting as this one seemed to be. Finally he decided to respond in kind to the officer's flatly stated question. "I may not be an ensign, sir, but I do want promoting."

"That badly?"

"Yes."

The officer nodded. "Wood was to have been made Lieutenant."

Billy frowned, unable to keep himself from looking over to the spot where he knew the ensign's body lay, still. He was almost sure he could pick it out from those surrounding it, though perhaps that was his imagination. "Aye."

The officer didn't say anything further. It occurred to Billy that not once had the Major-General looked at him, instead keeping his gaze locked on the distant horizon. After a long silence, the officer nodded again, as though having come to a decision.

"The commission's yours, if you want it."

Billy was sure he'd misheard. "I- Sir?"

"The commission, Boyd. The promotion. To Lieutenant."

"But I... Ensign comes next, si-"

"Do you want it or no?" A trace of impatience coloured the officer's voice and, for the first time, Billy found himself on the receiving end of the man's gaze.

"Aye. I want it."

The officer nodded once more, then turned to leave, his step brisk. He paused and turned back as Billy called out, "Wait! Sir. Who-?"

"Major-General Sir Rhys-Davies, Lieutenant."

"Thank you." Billy had to force the words out past an embarrassing lump in his throat. The sentiment in his voice seemed to discomfort the officer, and he gave a gruff 'harumph' before turning and walking away.

 

End.


End file.
